There are two different lines in front of the Apple Store.
The first dozen or so spots have their owners trying to sell them. These people are on their cell phones and laptops, trying to auction off their places in line for hundreds of dollars. On the other hand, the rest of the folks here have no such plans. They’re just in this for the iPhone.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. Since folks can’t sell preorders online, they’re reduced to selling their spots in line. The demand is there but the thing is supply is an unknown. Nobody knows the allocation of phones to the stores. Web sites such as Macsimum are predicting limited supplies while other pages like MacRumors are estimating up to 1,000 phones per store.

Right now, it’s hard to say. But there’s no nervousness in the back of the line despite the fact Apple is limiting the iPhone to two per customer. Being on the West Coast, we’ll be able to get a better feel for the stock by the time stores reopen at 6 p.m PDT. By monitoring what happens on the East Coast launch, we can judge whether paying $500 for spot No, 5 will be worth it or not.